ADDRESS
OF
PRESIDENT COOLIDGE
BEFORE
THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF THE
BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
Washington, D. C.
May 1, 1926
WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1926
Members of the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America:
The strength and hope of civilization lies in its power to adaptitself to changing circumstances. Development and character arenot passive accomplishments. They can be secured only throughaction. The strengthening of the physical body, the sharpening ofthe senses, the quickening of the intellect, are all the result of thatmighty effort which we call the struggle for existence. Downthrough the ages it was carried on for the most part in the open,out in the fields, along the streams, and over the surface of the sea.It was there that mankind met the great struggle which has beenwaged with the forces of nature. We are what that struggle hasmade us. When the race ceases to be engaged in that great strength-givingeffort the race will not be what it is now—it will changeto something else. These age-old activities or their equivalent arevital to a continuation of human development. They are invaluablein the growth and training of youth.
Towns and cities and industrial life are very recent and modernacquirements. Such an environment did not contribute to the makingof the race, nor was it bred in the lap of present-day luxury.It was born of adversity and nurtured by necessity. Though theenvironment has greatly changed, human nature has not changed.If the same natural life in the open requiring something of thesame struggle, surrounded by the same elements of adversity andnecessity, is gradually passing away in the experience of the greatmass of the people; if the old struggle with nature no longer goes on;if the usual environment has been very largely changed, it becomesexceedingly necessary that an artificial environment be created tosupply the necessary process for a continuation of the developmentand character of the race. The cinder track must be substitutedfor the chase.
Art therefore has been brought in to take the place of nature.One of the great efforts in that direction is represented by the BoyScout movement. It was founded in the United States in 1910. InSeptember of that year the organization was given a great impetusby the visit of the man whom we are delighted to honor this evening,Sir Robert Baden-Powell. This distinguished British general is nowknown all over the world as the originator of this idea. That it hasbeen introduced into almost every civilized country must be to him aconstant source of great gratification. The first annual meeting washeld in the East Room of the White Ho